Sociology

Now that Nerd Culture is just regular Culture, thanks to the Internet, you'd think everything would have been settled, but there are still some skirmishes going on. And only this week a new mini-ruckus erupted and oddly enough, it was among the girls.

Now, one of the GOOD things about the internet is that it has allowed girl geeks to be just as proud and out as boy geeks and to, indeed, show that they like geek stuff, something that was doubted for a long time.

Speaking as a lifelong nerd myself, I can testify that back in the neolithic age of nerditry, if you had girls genes you were not taken seriously as a comics fan, wrestling fan, Star Wars fan, or anything else that boys thought was just for them. Oh, the looks I got when I said I had read Robert E. Howard. For a long time, I felt like I was the only one. In fact while I was at WonderCon, I was chatting to Sergio Aragones about the olden days and he said, "Remember when you were the only girl?" and I could only laugh in agreement.

Chester Brown's PAYING FOR IT is destined to be one of the most talked about graphic novels of the year -- we'd suspect it may be THE most talked about. It's a great work of comics that is nonetheless problematic for the views it espouses about human relationships and commerce. Just in case you aren't sitting on the edge of your seat waiting for the book to come out, PAYING FOR IT is a memoir by Chester Brown about his experiences employing prostitutes. Brown's previous works include such masterworks as I NEVER LIKED YOU, ED THE HAPPY CLOWN and the historical narrative LOUIS RIEL, which is considered an important political work in Brown's native Canada. As one of the pioneers of the most successful schools of autobiographical comics, Brown is a major figure of the art comix era.

Scott Adams is the author of the very popular workplace comic strip Dilbert. Although its humor is very accurate for those trapped in cubicle hell, it has also been held up over the years as an example of, er, declining standards in comic strip art. Still, it is very popular, a frequent object of refrigerator adornment and the books sell very well. Scott Adams also has a blog. And one day he was asking what he should write about, and some men's rights activists suggested that as a topic, (do these guys have a name, like Man Firsters?) so he wrote about men's rights. After he'd posted his little piece, he didn't much like the comments he was getting, so he took it down. For some reason.

This post by Kirsty Walker rounds up all the evidence FOR the upcoming KA-POW comics convention in London being a total sausage fest -- all the guests, award nominees and face time people are men.

Austin's South By South West has long been hailed THE place to play your new Renaissance-powered noise band or screen your documentary on the failings of mankind. As a former Austinite myself, I know the activity of the town pulses as if the city itself is running a marathon. The University of Texas students are off on Spring Break allowing for a different sort of tourist to take their spaces at the taco carts, oddly-named bars (hello, Mooseknuckle) and marvel at the bats of Congress Bridge.

It's international Women's Day, yo. To celebrate, let's watch this video of Judi Dench (M) interrogating Daniel Craig (uh, James Bond) who appears in drag. "We're equals, aren't we, 007?" asks Dame Dench. Let's also look at the day in nerd gender relations. There was much tweeting yesterday about the new TCJ.com and the number of lady contributors. Melinda Beasi at Manga Bookshelf sums up the whole thing, and the comments have it out and then everyone sat down and ate a hearty lunch.

Last night Bosch Fawstin, the former-Muslim-turned-ant-jihadist crusader, was quizzed on the Daily Show regarding his alarm over Nightrunner, Batman's parkour-practicing Muslim French sidekick. Aasif Mandvi does the interviewing, and he also gets Chris Sims (one 'm') from Comics Alliance to explain what's happening from a comics blogger point of view.

It's strange, I suppose, to find a show so entrenched in geek culture as CES almost completely devoid of comics influence, only to discover a porn show roughly three miles away swimming in the stuff.

Obviously, DC doesn't want to risk losing the dollars of its core audience in the hopes of gaining a broader selection of readers. What if those new readers don't come? Hey, that’s a serious and valid question. Money isn't exactly pouring in. Taking a risk is scary when a comic selling 25,000 copies is considered a solid book. And so...you do nothing. You make awkward jokes when fans ask questions at cons. You put minority characters who rarely appear in big pose down images as if they are an integral part of the story. You hope to keep complaints from both sides to a very low rumbling.

Just how gay were the old Marvel Swimsuit Specials? Very, very gay, Richard Cook writes, and JR JR demonstrates:

Comedian/actor/sometime comics writer Patton Oswalt expresses clearly the vague feeling we've often haphazardly batted about here: as Geek Culture becomes the norm, it is itself dying. Oswalt pegs the phenomenon of "Etewaf: Everything That...

Fandom's deadliest duo are back: Ragnell (Lisa Fortuner) and Kalinara (Melissa Krause) are two writers who founded the link blog When Fangirls Attack and set off a whole generation of conversation and outrage. A few years ago they passed WFA to others due to real life stuff -- Ragnell is in the Armed Forces, and Kalinara was in school -- but it's kind of foundered since they left -- two posts explaining why there are no posts since October. So R&K are back with a NEW link blog Dispatches From The Fridge,